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HON. GEOPiGE S. BOUTWELL, 



OF MASSACHUSETTS, 



THE ADMISSION OF TENNESSEE; 




DELIVERED 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 20, 1866. 



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X 




WASHINGTON: 
PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 

1866. 



ADMISSION OF TENNESSEE. 



The House havina: under consideration the joint, 
resolution providing for the admission of Senators 
and Representatives from Tennessee — 

Mr. BOUTWELLsaid: 

Mr. Speaker: I am not ignorant of the fact 
that the votes of the House already taken 
foreshow conclusively its purpose to pass the 
pending joint resolution for the admission of 
Tennessee. I can see many reasons which 
operate on the minds of others as they do 
iipon my own mind tending to such a course ; 
but after the most careful reflection during 
months and years I am still as deeply con- 
vinced as ever of the dangerous nature of 
this proceeding. While I am conscious that 
my voice falls upon unwilling ears ; that it is 
the fixed purpose of the House in the presence 
of a great political struggle to adopt this meas- 
ure, and though I am the humblest of the mem- 
bers of this body, with less right than any other 
man to address the country, and with no hope 
whatever that my words will reach posterity, I 
yet avail myself of the kindness of the gentle- 
man who has charge of this resolution and raise 
my voice here and now and for the last time 
against the consummation of this scheme. 

This morning I offered an amendment, on 
which, however, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Bingham] declined to allow the House to vote, 
which embodies my opinions concerning the 
admission of Tennessee. If gentlemen ob- 
served the language of that amendment they 
are aware that I have in some degree departed 
from my own settled convictions as to the right 
of all men to the enjoyment of the elective 
franchise in deference to what I understand to 
be the judgment of the majority of this House, 



and possibly at this time to what is the judg- 
ment of the loyal people of the country. The 
resolution that I proposed provided for impar- 
tial suffi-ago in that State by the act of its own 
people as a condition-precedent to its admission 
to the exercise of power in the government. 
It secured justice to the colored people of Ten- 
nessee first, and then to the colored people of 
the revolted and still rebellious section of this 
country. 

I am not troubled by the informalities ap- 
parent in the proceedings of the Tennessee 
Legislature upon the rpiestion of ratifying the 
constitutional amendment. It received tho 
votes of a majority of the members of a full 
House, and when the proper officers shall have 
made the customary certificate and filed it in 
•the Department of State, it is not easy to see 
how any legal objection can be raised, even if 
two thirds of the members were not present, 
although that proportion is a quorum according 
to the constitution of the State. 

My objections are not technical, but vital and 
Atodaraental. First, the government which they 
submit hero, and which by your preamble and 
by your vote you declare under the Constitution 
to be a republican form of government, is not, 
as it appears to me, such in fact. I have not 
time now in these thirty minutes to trace the 
history of the opinions entertained by the found- 
ers of the Republic as to what constitutes a 
republican form of government. But if they 
identified themselves with any opinion or idea 
upon this subject, it was this: that whenever 
powers were conferred by hereditary rules upon 
a class of men, or whenever by hereditary rtiles 
a class of men were excluded from all partici- 



pation in the government, that government was 
necessarily anti-rej^ublican in form as well as 
in fact. I do not assert that it is necessary that 
every man should vote, and that a government 
in which terms and conditions are imposed is 
necessarily anti-i-epublican; but the terms and 
conditions must be reasonable ; they must be 
such as to render it nolf only possible Init prob- 
able that the great majority will be able to meet 
the requirements of the law. 

What is this House to-day, in the name of 
the people of this country and under the 
Constitution, declaring? That a State con- 
stitution by which more than eighty thou- 
sand male citizens are forever, for themselves 
and for their posterity, deprived of all part in 
the government of that State is republican in 
form. Sir, that government is an aristocracy ; 
it is an oligarchy ; it is not republican ; it is 
not democratic. Wherever a man and his 
posterity are forever disfranchised from all 
participation in the government, that govern- 
ment is not republican in form. 

Next, ai"e we to question the existence of 
the power on our part to accomplish that which 
I now suggest ought to be accomplished — the 
enfranchisement of the freedmen of Tennes- 
see, as the beginning of the great work of 
reconstruction upon a republican basis? We 
have positive power with reference to the 
States that have been in rebellion, which we 
have exercised by the passage of the act es-- 
tablishing and continuing the Freedmen" s Bu- 
reau aiid by the passage of the civil rights 
bill. 

I do not now discuss the question whether 
we have the power directly to enfranchise the 
negroes of Tennessee and of the other StatieS 
recently in rebellion. I have an opinion upon 
the question, but I ofl'er no argument in its sup- 
port at the present time. I believe that that 
power exists in Congress ; but now I appeal to 
the negative power of the Government that we 
may reject Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkan- 
sas, until they perform this act of justice, for 
the country, for the negroes, for themselves. In 
thus requiring an additional act of justice on their 
part as a condition-precedent to their return 
to the enjoyment of their former power in the 
country, we have the authority of i^rosident Tjin- 
coln, of President .lohnson, and of nuiueroiis 



acts of this Congress and of the last Congress. 
We have exacted conditions-precedent to the 
admission of those States to representative 
power in the Government of the country. 
Through Presidents Lincoln and Johnson the 
country insisted upon the ratification of the 
amendment abolishing slavery, the repudia- 
tion of the rebel debt, and now we demand, 
even in the case of Tennessee, the ratification 
of the pending amendment to the Constitution 
equalizing representation and alias conditions- 
precedent to the exercise of power in the Gov- 
ernment. With equal, if not with more justice, 
we may demand an impartial system of suffrage. 
Nor can it be maintained with propriety that 
this exaction shall not be made because there 
are States, exercising their full functions as 
such, in which the negroes are excluded from 
the ballot-box? The injustice in those States 
is not of such magnitude as to endanger the 
peace and safety of the country ; while in the 
case of the rebellious States there seems only 
the alternative of equal suffrage through the 
demands of the Government on the one hand 
and civil or social war on the other. Hence, 
while we may condemn the exclusion of negroes 
from the ballot-box in States now represented 
in Congress, there may be no public necessity 
for an attempt to remedy the wrong by the 
action of the General Governnient. Moreover, 
in the case of the loyal States the General Gov- 
ernment cannot apply a remedy except by af- 
firmative, positive action, for which the coun- 
try is not prepared, and for which there is no 
controlling public necessity. In the case of 
the States lately in rebellion we are not under 
the necessity of taking affirmative legislative 
action. The proceeding on our part is simply 
and wholly within the domain of the precedents 
cited and the authority of the Constitution. The 
abolition of slavery by the Constitution has given 
a new meaning to the phrase " republican gov- 
einiment;" for it is now settled that a State in 
which slavery exists is not republican in form 
according to our Constitution, though previous 
to the ratification of the amendment the fact 
may have been otherwise. While slavery ex- 
isted it was generally true, however, that all 
free citizens were voters. To this rule there 
were some exceptions, but they were few and 
relatively unimportant. * 



// 



I proceed now ttf consider the expediency of 
this measure. There are in Tennessee not less 
than two hundi'ed thousand able-bodied adult 
male citizens, and you are consenting that the 
.-T)olitical power of that State shall be put into 
tlie hands of less than sixty thousand. By the 
constitution of Tennessee more than half the 
white male citizens of that State arc disfran- 
chised. Of this I do not complain ; but in 
addition thereto eighty thousand male colored 
citizens of the State are also disfranchised, 
making an aggregate of one hundred and forty 
thousand men who are excluded from partici- 
pation in the government. The sixty thou- 
sand loyal white men come here and ask to be 
accepted as a State, and you are solemnly 
resolving, in the presence of the country and 
with the light of history and the traditions of 
the Republic, that the government is rejmb- 
lican in form. 

What do you invite and invoke in the future? 
Do you suppose that these sixty thousand reb- 
els are to rest quiet under their exclusion from 
political power in the government of that State 
for any considerable number of years? Such 
an expectation, if entertained, will not be real- 
ized. On the other hand, this action invites 
and renders necessary a combination between 
the eighty thousand colored men and the sixty- 
thousand rebels. The rebels, forgetting their 
past prejudices, and the loyal blacks, forgetting 
the disloyalty of the sixty thousand rebels, will 
join hands and overturn the government of the 
State. And what you are doing to-day for Ten- 
nessee you are to be invited hereafter to do for 
the other ten States of the South. There is only 
an alternative. It is in this : that the four mil- 
lion colored people shall escape from the tyr- 
anny which you authorize the southern oligarchs 
to exercise over them. And I bid the people, 
the working people of the North, the men who 
are struggling for subsistence, to beware of the 
day when the southern freedmen shall swarm 
over the borders in quest of those rights which 
should be secured to them in their native States. 
A just policy on our part leaves the black man 
in the South where he will soon become pros- 
perous and happy. An unjust policy forces 
him from home and into those States where his 
rights will be protected, to the injury of the 
black man and the white man both of the No^-th 



and the South. JufJtice and expediency are 
united in indissoluble bonds, and the men of 
the North cannot be unjust to the former slaves 
without themselves suffering the bitter penalty 
of transgression. 

I ask of this House what the answer is to be 
when the other ten States demand recognition 
and the admission of members. Do you say 
they shall not be admitted on the terms you 
now offer to Tennessee? What other terms 
Avill you exact of Arkansas, North Carolina, 
and South Carolina? You can exact none in 
addition to what you are now exacting, unless 
you demand for them what I now demand for 
the people of Tennessee — impartial suffrage for 
all loyal adult male citizens. And if you then 
hesitate to meet the question from which you 
now shrink — the right of the negro to vote — 
you will have no excuse for denying full polit- 
ical rights to the other ten States. Arkansas 
has complied with the conditions named in the 
preamble to the resolution, and you have no 
excuse for refusing to admit Arkansas except 
the excuse I now offer for refusing to admit 
Tennessee. You will have again upon you 
that question which you so much dread, but 
which cannot be postponed and which must be 
met, whether the colored men of the South, 
once in slavery but now free, are to be endowed 
with the rights of citizens of this country. But 
if 3'ou say, as you will say, unless the people 
rise in their majesty and demand justice for 
their suffering fellow-men, that these States 
may be admitted, as Tennessee is to-day to 
be admitted, then to what extremity of woe 
have you reduced the country! You have four 
million discontented loyal persons made dis- 
contented by your action. You have in the 
States of the South more than five million dis- 
contented rebellious white people. You compel 
these classes, naturally enemies, to unite under 
the force of circumstances which now you may 
control for the good of the country; and if, 
as we believe, the white race is the dominant 
race, at least for the time being, m intellect 
and intelligence, you thus give to the rebel 
class of the South the moral, physical, and 
political power which can be derived from the 
influence they will exercise over the four mil- 
lion blacks. Does any one believe that the 
blacks are to be exterminated? The old fablo 



6 



of Antceus is founded in the nature of man. 
They who labor on the soil never yet have 
been and probably they never can' be extermi- 
nated. And consider further that the blacks 
are organized into chui-ches ; they are estab- 
lishing everywhere schools; they are becoming 
the possessors of land ; they have military 
knowledge. Do you expect that such a people, 
though yet in their infancy, are to be extermi- 
nated? They will continue to exist; they will 
thrive even under oppression ; but the day may 
come, and I fear it may come soon if this policy 
be pursued, Avhen they will assert by force and 
by dangerous combinations the natural rights 
with which they have been by God endowed. 

And what do you offer to the loyal whites of 
the South? You offer them only submission, 
degradation, or expatriation. Do you suppose 
that when you have established in the other 
southern States governments like that of Ten- 
nessee, in which the disloyal whites are ex- 
cluded and the loyal blacks are also excluded, 
the loyal whites can withstand for a moment 
the surging waves of public sentiment whicli 
will rise, and foam, and rage, however unjust 
and foul their origin? If, on the other hand, 
tlio negroes are permitted to vote, even in 
small numbers only in the beginning, they 
naturally become the allies and friends of the 
loyal whites of the South ; and especially will 
they be our friends in any future controversy 
involving the integrit}' of the Union. No coun- 
try can afford to disregard the rights or the 
power of an eighth of its popi^lation ; and 
above all, it is dangerous for this Government 
to authorize or tolerate, an unjust policy to- 
ward so large a proportion of its citizens. 

There are in this country two great political 
public wrongs, one of which you have taken the 
proper means to remedy by an amendment to 
the Constitution, securing to a white man in 
the North equal poUtical power with a white 
man in the South. We are agreed upon that. 
When a white man's rights arc concerned, 
there is no difference of opinion upon this side 
of the House as to the necessity of protecting 
him. But there is another great wrong, for 
which you make no provision, offer no remedy, 
present no excuse, and that is the denial of the 
elective franchise to the black men of the South. 

I must say for the gentlemen upon the other 



side of the House that they are consistent in 
this matter. They have never asserted the cit- 
izenship of the black man; they have denied 
it; they have never invited him into the Army 
nor called upon him to fight the battles of the 
Republic. They have, as far as they had the 
power, refused his services ; and however wrong 
they may have been, they have been consist- 
ent in their course. But upon this side of the 
House it is otherwise. We have recently passed 
an amendment to the Constitution, to be sub- 
mitted to the States, declaring that negroes 
are, under the Constitution, hereafter to be 
citizens, and now, when we have the power to 
secure for them the rights of citizens, we are 
silent. We have invited them into the armies 
of the Repulilic and now we abandon them to 
those who have been for years their enemies 
and oppressors. How are we to reconcile to 
ourselves, to our country, and to posterity this 
great inconsistency on our part? 

I am as much attached to party as any man 
can be, but the jewel of the Republican party 
is its consistency based upon justice, and now 
we abandon justice and accept inconsistency 
as our policy. Is not the history of this coun- 
try full of warning? I will not mention names, 
but from 1850 to the close of the rebellion the 
pathway of ambition for parties and for men 
has been strewn right and left with the frag- 
ments of parties and the remains of politicians 
that have proved fiilse to justice, to humanity, 
and to republican principles. Do 3'ou inquire 
whether these States are to be forever ex- 
cluded? By no means. We have assurances 
from North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, 
and Texas that if this Congress will but de- 
mand impartial suffrage the people of those 
States who are loyal to the Union will enter 
the contest, second the demand for impartial 
suffrage, contend for it, and ultimately, as they 
believe, they will secure it. I speak under the 
impression, the firm conviction, that we to-day 
here surrender up the cause of justice, the 
cause of the country, in the vain hope that the 
admission of Tennessee may work somewhat for 
the advantage of the party which has controlled 
the country during these last six years. We sur- 
render the rights of four million people ; we sur- 
render the cause of justice ; we imperil the peace 
and endanger the prosperity of the country ; we 



degrade ourselves as a great party which has 
controlled the Government in the most trying 
times in the history of the world. Fortunate 
will it be for us, for those whom we represent, 
and for the future of the country if these appre- 
hensions shall not be realized ; and, humble 
though I be, but in the full conviction that they 



are not groundless, I enter my earnest protest 
against this proceeding. Believing it to be 
wrong, I declare ray convictions in the pres- 
ence of those who have power to prevent the 
wrong ; and I make the declaration with a sense 
of responslblity such as has never before rested 
upon me in any experience of my life. 






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